There has been an ongoing conversation the past few days over at Newsgang Live, a conference call/podcast that I sometimes participate in. I suspect it’s actually been going on since it’s inception earlier this year. When Steve Gillmor opened the doors to people outside the Gang (well, Calacanis did, but Steve always could have flipped the switch), this somewhat open source roundtable began to find its feet behind the Democratic primaries and Twitter. I have participated as my schedule allows and also done my best to listen whenever I can; I miss a few either way.
This group has begun to develop a voice of its own, distinct personalities and interest points that usually start around political news and end up either at an unexpected vista or in the weeds. The risk you take with an amorphous group and no clear format or topic is the chance for either the freedom to go wherever the group needs to go or total anarchy. Steve is good with making sure that his opinion is heard; some will use this as a starting off point or react to it like a magnet pole charged oppositely, compelled to go directly away from the point of contact.
Recently Steve has left the group to its own device, chiming in when either the ship starts taking water or lifting into the sky. The effect here has been both chaotic and strangely stimulating, others having to assume roles they either haven’t had to or didn’t want to. For the most part, everyone wants to talk about what they personally want to talk about. The political types are up on the latest news and angles; the tech types are watching the flow and looking for workarounds. The interesting part to me is those who are attracted to the intersection points, who, like Steve, see it all as one big organic organism that may be too big for anyone of us to see the connections or perhaps too simple for those of us who tend to complicate every equation.
I often expound my thoughts on how groups and group energy can be focused or wasted depending on either the effort or mutual release of control by the group. I work in a business where I see crowd control and crowd manipulation on a grand scale. The efforts to control a crowd for safety or efficiency often look futile; when the kids are released from the ticket line in order and told to walk orderly to the pit, they often ignore the security and each other, running with total abandon to secure the spot they want, that they feel they are entitled to, that they feel is threatened by the person behind them, often putting themselves in harms path. The container fills much like a bathtub, the low points filling first and leveling off as physics allows. In the time before the show, the crowd amuses itself with games, including chants, cheers and doing “the wave”, all requiring the ability to interact with others.
The next example is a little different. A good performer with charisma can make a crowd do things with a simple hand gesture, a funny look, an outrageous action. More often it is with words or a melody that the most powerful effect is reached, often songs that a group as a whole knows very well and has an emotional attachment to. The group moves as a single organism, sings together as a single voice, maybe not at pitch but remarkably close to either what their brain remembers from a recording or the reference of the sound coming from the speakers.
(from Wikionary)